A psychologist's experience of cancer and life

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Ah, ha, ha, ha, stayin’ alive

Did you miss National Cancer Survivors Day yesterday? Not to worry, so did I. I scored nary an invite to any of the festivities. I’m not even sure I am a cancer survivor; all I know is that my cancer hasn’t killed me yet.

Turns out I’ve got a good cancer, if there is such a thing, one that people can live with for many years. And since most of the time I’m in complete denial about my co-existing conditions (my impaired liver and my polycythemia–Happy 17th Polycythemaversary, by the way), I can pretend I too will be one of these people who will live a long life.

One of the main reasons I don’t feel like a true survivor is that I still take daily medications to keep my leukemia at bay. Oh, and my regular visits to the Cancer Centre. There’s nothing like hanging out amongst my cancerous peers to remind me I’ve still got the big C.

Unlike many other cancerous folk, I have very few leukemia cells now, according to most recent testing. So few that, in a CML patient booklet I just read, I am considered in remission. No one has used the R word with me before; in fact, when I was first diagnosed, I was told people with CML don’t go into remission. I was as surprised as you may be. If I’ve misled you, I did it unintentionally.

I also learned from that informative booklet that, with the advances in treatment of CML, many of us are living to a ripe old age. The focus of intervention has shifted from treatment to our quality of life. That part I get, now that I have reached Day 7 of The Wrath of the Gouty Finger. The leukemia isn’t so bad; it’s the symptoms and medication side effects that I find challenging.

So I’d like to suggest a new day of celebration more appropriate to those of us with CML. Let’s call it National Cancer-Symptoms Survivors Day. We’d be celebrating maintaining our quality of life while living with the threat of a potentially terminal illness hanging over our heads. We gatherers could compare notes on our various medication side effects and how we have survived them. We could share information about the interventions we’ve added on to manage those side effects.

I can think of many ways such a get together could benefit me. I’m sure there’s a CML survivor out there who would know how to manage yoga postures that require my lying on my belly. “Do you also have to rearrange the position of your football-sized spleen when you lie down?” I’d ask. Or how about our unrelenting fatigue? “Do you too fall asleep during matinees? How do you keep yourself from snoring?” Then there are the challenges of taking all those drugs. “How do you manage to time your medications to minimize all drug and food interactions?” The possibilities are endless!

We’ll plan our special day to coincide with the National Cancer Survivors Day. Then those of us who feel left out will have somewhere to go where we feel a sense of belonging. We all need to feel we belong somewhere.